The Sweet Taste
by chezchuckles
Summary: A year after S3 Finale, Kate Beckett and Richard Castle finally host the Johanna Beckett Memorial Fund Silent Auction. Almost fully healed, two months into desk duty, Kate admits to herself there's something more she wants. For carolina17. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

The Sweet Taste

* * *

><p>What a night for a dance<p>

You know I'm a dancing machine.

With a fire in my bones

and the sweet taste of kerosene.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>Kate closed her eyes, took another shallow breath. Her ribs ached fiercely, her back pulsed with sharp pain, and her head pounded. But she wanted to remember this night, wanted to remember the good being done, and not the memories of everyone lost, everything broken.<p>

It was the first time in almost a year that she was alone.

She opened her eyes and looked out over the balcony to the people below. The band had started up awhile back, and there were couples dancing, but most of the attendees stayed at the edges of the floor. The room glittered in silver and green, tasteful and swank, while a collection of beautiful people in beautiful clothes made the rounds.

She was grateful to note that the auction tables along the right side of the ballroom still held an energetic mix of people. Castle was down there as well, teasing and prompting, flirting and nudging, pushing people to bid on the silent auction items displayed on the tables. She could make out the distinct lines of his shoulders from up here; she could hear his laughter boom out over the french horn's jazz.

Some were still finishing dinner, delicate bites with their eyes on the musicians, their ears tuned to the latest gossip. The guests were a strange combination of her mother and father's old world, old money, and her partner's city-wide, power-player connections.

All of them were attending her mother's memorial dinner and silent auction. Finally. Her father was down there too, easing into his role as companion to a ghost, smiling with well-wishers and shaking hands with the city's elite. Her father had done this kind of thing before, back when her mother was alive. He'd promised her that he wouldn't have any trouble tonight.

Kate was alone. She ached all over, and if she were absolutely truthful, she probably shouldn't be here. Her abdominal muscles were still weak, with a tendency to cramp if she stood for long periods of time, let alone in heels.

Modest heels. Barely heels at all. How depressing, to be in a fancy dress, and beautiful hair, and stunning to Castle, but wear matronly shoes.

She wanted to be better. She wanted to be better so badly that she ignored her body and did what she wanted. She was, at least, that well. A couple months into her desk duty and she had even managed to sneak out with Ryan and Esposito to grab a witness. Although the new Captain had come down hard on her. And she'd spent the night trying to hide her tears of agony in the pillow, furious with herself.

Months ago, Castle had stopped hassling her about it; she thought he'd finally given in. He hadn't tried to push the painkillers down her throat any more, hadn't insisted on a more moderately-paced physical therapy schedule. He'd shut up about all that.

And so, Kate was alone. Blissfully, blessedly alone. Up above the crowd, far from the smiles and money and dancing, in a kind of white noise of silence.

She was grateful of course. Planning her mother's event was just about the only positive thing she'd been able to focus on this past year, holed up in Castle's loft with him, rearranging seating charts or picking out side dishes or creating the band's play list. It had felt, oddly, like they were planning a wedding.

And it was a way to honor her mother even while her mother's murderer continued to elude them. The case cold, the evidence disappeared or stolen, the investigation stone-walled.

She had things she needed to say to Castle about that; she was certain the boys were keeping information back from her. She was in a dark place when it came to this case. She was still somewhat under guard by the outfit Castle had hired; she was at a frustrating impasse.

But tonight? Tonight she was wearing a beautiful, elegant green dress that dipped so low in the back that she could feel every one of Castle's fingerprints against her skin, warm and urgent, like need.

Tonight she wanted to dance with him. She wanted to hold *him* captive for awhile, see how he liked it. She wanted to ignore her half-broken body and be the Kate whose mother was proud of her, whose mother understood that she was doing the best she could.

"How'd you slip away?" Sultry, low tones, rich and unsteady.

She turned her head and Castle was making his approach down the open-air hall, having just come up the stairs. His eyes were brilliant and searching hers for telltale signs, but he looked like he wanted more than that.

Kate kept all the aching out of her face and gave him a slow smile.

"Magic."

His lips quirked, and he held out a hand to her that she actually took.

"Going well?" he asked.

"Seems to be. People are bidding?"

"People are," he answered and took another step closer.

She knew what he was doing, and met him halfway, so that their hips touched, her shoulder against his arm, nearly as tall as him but not quite.

"My dad seems to be ok," she said, tossing something out there because the things she wanted to say seemed wrong for right now.

"I think so. Ryan and Jenny were looking for you. Wanted to say good-bye. I told them I'd relay the message."

"Message received."

What she wanted to say was, _Tell me again. Tell me again, Castle, and this time I won't die on you._

But she didn't say that either. Because it might have been a dream; it was a dream. She had that dream where he held her down against the grass so hard that her chest felt like it was splitting in two, but he said it, he said it, and she died anyway. Was it a nightmare or a memory?

"Make me dance," she said instead and pushed into him enough to get him going.

He stepped back a bit, in the direction of the stairs, and gave her a strange look. "Make you? Kate Beckett, no one makes you."

"You do," she countered, and she knew, she knew, that too much was showing in her eyes but she couldn't help it.

"You look beautiful," he said suddenly, and used his hold on her hand to pull her closer. She went because she had her eye on the dance floor, and because she wanted the heat of his body to ease the ache in hers.

"You look. . .not so worried," she said, lifting her free hand to smooth a finger down the remnants of the lines along his forehead. "Less worried about me."

"I guess I am," he admitted, his lips twisting into a sad smile. "Less now than. . .six months ago. But sometimes. More."

"So make me dance."

She shouldn't. They both knew it. She shouldn't be standing up for as long as she had been already, but the fire in her bones seemed unquenchable.

_The sweet taste of kerosene. _Where had she heard that before? She knew, now, what it might have meant.

They were too close, their mouths too close; their bodies drew too close, moth and flame. Who would burn alive, who would just burn?

"Dance with me, Kate."


	2. Chapter 2

I get lost in the night, so high

I don't wanna come down- just to face the loss

of the good thing that I have found.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>She danced with him because she wanted to be warm, to be held up a little. The trip back down the stairs had reminded her how little endurance she had for exertion of any kind, and Castle's hand at her elbow had been just about the only thing keeping her upright.<p>

His cheek was close to hers, and the way he held her told her that he knew she was using up her reserves. He pressed his hand at her back, skin on skin, and silently urged her to lean on him.

She kept away as long as she could manage it, and then gave up and let herself rest on him when the muscles in her back started to spasm. Castle's fingers began to knead in that spot to the left of her spine and she wilted a little, breathless.

Castle didn't ask her to let him help, and Kate didn't say thank you. Everything in silence. Everything in moderation. Even that.

She opened her eyes again and saw her father watching her, his eyes studying the two of them. Kate didn't make a move away, couldn't if her life depended on it, and her father gave her the ghost of a smile. Her mother's smile.

"After the band, we've got a couple of speeches," Castle said, his voice nuzzling her ear in a way he never would. Not in public.

"Mine included," she said, no longer at a place in her life where the crack in her voice made her mortified. Just. . .how it was with her. Weak when she least wanted it; strong when she was afraid she'd never be strong again.

"Yeah," he said. "And your father's. And mine. And then we announce the winners of the auction and tally it up."

Would the count be in their favor? A year of fighting for her life. Plus the damage to her insides, her muscles, her system. Plus the decisions of her captain, her job. All of that weighed against the thing between them now, and somehow it balanced out. The equation of her life.

"I don't know that I can do it," she said finally, and she felt her heart fluttering in her neck, like a butterfly trapped in cocoon skin, wings working to get free.

"Then don't," he said back, stroking his thumb up her spine as he did.

The upstroke of his thumb, the stir of warm breath against her ear, and the pinch of pain across her ribs was so familiar that she almost missed the way those things slid along her nerves like satin and sandpaper. Arousal bled through her veins, slow enough to almost miss it.

"How's this?" he said, and brushed all five fingers along the satin curve of her right ribs, sweeping up and barely missing her breast to cup her jaw softly, then let her go.

"How's. . what?"

"How's this? We'll make your dad go first, then you, if you still feel like it. I'll finish it up. If you don't want to speak, you don't have to. But if you change your mind, you can step up and speak before I get to the auction winners."

Oh. "Okay."

She wanted him to touch her again, but she wouldn't ask. She was tired of asking for things, asking for a hand on the stairs, for a glass of water, for help getting her shirt off, for painkillers. She wanted him to know.

He'd stopped asking too. He hugged her when he wanted to, touched her when he needed to, pressed these doe-soft kisses to her forehead that somehow put strength in her backbone and made her able to keep going.

How had he done that? Presented her with softness but gave her steel instead?

She had given over her life to the things that would keep her safe: the security detail hired by Castle, the filed away unsolved cold case of her mother's murder, the abandonment of the active investigation, the unspoken agreement between them to just not move, not forward, not back.

She was finally tired of being safe. She craved movement and velocity; she wanted to ditch the security guards at the door and sneak out the back with Castle, prove to him that she was alive.

But the music switched to some old-school R&B from the set list, a song that her mother had always loved. She could still hear the woman humming it, if she closed her eyes and pretended no one else was around. Castle transitioned her into a slower rhythm and brought her closer to his chest, pressing their hands between them so that she curled into him. And she wanted to curl; she had discovered the way curling up into Richard Castle made everything easier.

Her elbow was still balanced on the inside of his forearm, so that he surreptitiously held her up. She felt the ripple of tendons in his arm as he led them along the dance floor. She hesitated in a step and Castle chuckled.

"Don't worry. I'm not going to dip you."

She didn't fight the smile. Instead, she let it play along her lips, let him see it as it grew. She watched his own as it began to mirror hers, watched the joy catch fire in his eyes. The tinder of the dance made her body burn, but the flint in his eyes kept her there, held to the flame, longing for accelerant.

As Castle turned them, Kate caught another glimpse of her father, sitting at a table at the back now, a glass of water in his hand. Martha was standing just over him, like a mother hen, fending off people or alternately letting them in, a hand on her father's shoulder. She would dip her head down close to his to listen; her father raised a phantom of a smile.

Another spin from Castle, delicate and gentle, and she faced the side exit. Her big boys were there, watching her as ever. Tonight it was Emile and Pablo, both of the big boys looking uncomfortable in tuxedos, ear pieces tucked under their collars, the bulge of their weapons matching the bulge of muscle. She had met them at her front door this evening, and Pablo had whistled. It had made her smile. Emile hadn't been as friendly.

"How are they?" Castle asked, because he always seemed to know when she was dwelling on it.

"They seem ill at ease."

"That's good," he murmured. "Wouldn't want them to get complacent. They're guarding your life."

They *were* guarding her, but mostly they seemed to overshadow her like hulking monuments to failure. "I wish they weren't."

"I know," he whispered, and this time, his lips actually brushed the round, pink shell of her ear. She wondered why. Accidental contact? Or was Castle tired of waiting?

Sometimes, she had this sense that she was ready for the 9th inning, ready for it to be over, but it was still the 7th inning stretch. So close, but so much game left to play. She wanted to just have it done already; she was tired of struggling.

And she didn't think it was about the gunshot wound.

She thought it was about him.


	3. Chapter 3

In the dark of the night I could hear you,

calling my name.

With the hardest of hearts, I still feel full of pain.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>"I think. . .I think I need to sit down," she murmured.<p>

She let her lashes sweep down and suddenly she was being ushered to a table near the dance floor, her knees hitting a chair, still so surrounded by Castle that her feet didn't touch the ground.

He didn't hover; he didn't ask if she was all right. He'd stopped asking, long ago. He pulled up a seat next to hers and sat down, dropping his arm over the back of her chair. Castle's warmth sank into her shoulders, and she slowly eased her spine, let it unfold vertebra by vertebra.

When her back was flush to the seat, she let out a breath and hissed as the pain sent spikes up to her shoulder blades.

"Kate," he murmured. She wouldn't look at him.

Castle's fingers were at her neck, his thumb pressing into that spot just at her skull where the tendon had its insertion point. She shivered when the tension dissipated, closed her eyes. His fingers dug hard into her neck and released eddies of relief in their wake.

"I like this color," he said, his voice low. But she could always pick out his voice, like a match striking dry paper and setting it aflame.

"Green?" she said, made stupid by pain and his fingers.

"Mm, is that what it is? Jade green."

When she slitted her eyes open to look at him, he was still watching her. He'd stopped staring long ago. He wasn't struck by her any longer, simply what? Caught up. He looked caught up, lost.

She wanted to find him.

Kate reached out and skimmed her fingers over the tops of his thighs to capture his other hand, drawing it across his body to rest in her lap. The daydreaming look on his face was burned away by the heat between them.

She laced her fingers through his, knew he could feel the way it radiated from her skin, like a sunburn. The layers were peeling away. In this corner of the ball room, the darkness layered shadows over them; his eyes were twin flames.

"Kate."

She knew he could feel the tremor of her bones as well, the snake of pain coiling around her torso. Like always, this was the thing he addressed instead.

"I've got some of that prescription advil in my pocket," he said, squeezing her hand to give her another point of focus.

It helped; the pressure of his hand was like a conduit, channeling the pain away from its origin, giving her a chance to breathe again. She nodded at him, taking a shaky gulp of air as she did.

Castle pulled the packet out of his pocket, grabbed the water from the table behind her. Mostly full, no lipstick stains; she was in enough agony to ignore the sanitary issues.

She took two and let her forehead fall on Castle's shoulder, wincing as her ribs crunched. He slipped the glass from her fingers and she let her hands curl, palms up, on top of his thigh.

"Kate," he murmured, and his hands traced the lines of struggle along her face until she couldn't bear it any longer.

"I need to stand up," she said, her hand around his forearm, her nails scoring his jacket.

He was immediately placing his hands under her elbows, lifting her. She had no strength to even stand up without a boost, and she swayed when she got there. Castle kept a hand at the top of her back, between her shoulder blades, holding her close.

She took a couple of ragged breaths, then arched her back with the surge of pain racing up her spine, flinching against Castle's lapel as her stomach stretched painfully.

"Kate," he murmured. "I got you."

When she had told him she didn't think she could give her speech; it wasn't nerves or stage fright. It was this; the muscle spasms, the cramps, the razor's edge of pain that still came over her when she did too much.

She was shaking; he was holding her up, swaying a little, slowly drawing her to the edge of the room. She'd stopped feeling grateful a long time ago; Castle was as necessary as her next breath, and a lot easier to draw in.

"We've got thirty minutes more of the silent auction before I have to go up there," he murmured, brushing his lips along her forehead. "Want to go out in the hall, lay down?"

"Trying to cuddle with me, Castle?"

It got her a sly grin and a squeeze of her neck.

She shook her head at him. "Give the advil a chance."

Kate knew that he understood that she meant, _Don't let go_.

And he didn't.

"It's like a dance," he said, his voice tinted with amusement. He swayed with her in the corner of the room, and she snaked her arms around his waist under his jacket, the highest she could reach right now, her arms shaking so badly that she had trouble keeping them up.

"After tonight, you can lay down for a week," he promised. "I'll even let you stay in your own apartment, in your own bed. Won't make you come home with me."

But she wanted to come home with him.

"I'll bring you decaf coffee, and those pastries. I'll rub your back. I'll let you borrow from my extensive library-"

"All sounds good," she murmured back, feeling the words he didn't say more than the words he said. "Gonna hold you to it."

"I should've postponed this," he said with a sigh. "You're not-"

"I am." She insisted, jerking back.

Ripples traveled up her sides, twitched along her spine as her muscles reacted to having been so long unused, so shredded by the bullet before that. The ripples were better than the spasms.

You're not, he seemed to say. The things he wouldn't say. He just. . .let his eyes travel over her until she came back to him, sliding her arms around him slowly. She came back because she couldn't stand on her own. She'd stopped trying to stand on her own long ago.

_Someone to stand with you_.

Another whisper from a dream she couldn't pinpoint. The haze of painkillers and blood and agony veiled the last few days before she'd been shot. If she struggled to hold it, it would melt under the heat of her need.

"You feel better," he said after a moment, still holding her up. "Still clammy though."

She let out a shaky laugh and let her forehead rest against his neck, still amazed she could breathe without pain. "Mm, that's so attractive, isn't it?"

"In the right setting," he grinned, his fingers curling around the back of her elbows, into that tender place at the inside of her arms.

"This wouldn't be it, I think."

"No. But I'm willing to find out where-"

"I bet you are." _So am I._

Kate lifted her head and watched him getting caught up in her; she had stopped saying thank you a long time ago. Then, as the drugs hit, the sudden slack in her muscles made her hands drop from his waist, brushing the seat of his pants so that his hips involuntarily rocked towards her. She let the twitch of her lips shame him; Castle smiled back.

He would not be shamed.


	4. Chapter 4

See,

the time we shared?

It was precious to me.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>Sitting on the dais next to her father, Kate held his hand tightly, too tightly, fighting against her stiff muscles. Jim Beckett, not a stranger to the slow and painful progress of her physical recovery, merely endured the grip, that sorrowful smile still on his face.<p>

Kate tried not to look at the people flooding the floor in front of them, the sea of people there to honor her mother's legacy, settling into their places, ready to listen. Kate rode a wave of suppressed pain and tried not to let it show on her face. The tension in her stomach muscles wrapped around her back, the medicine taking the edge off and making the people before her flicker in the shallows of her vision.

The beautiful night lapped at the shoreline of her sorrow, eroded her defenses. The swags of beautiful green dipped around the room, echoed the green linens and the glass centerpieces. She let her eyes follow the flow, let herself get caught in the eddies of the event.

It wasn't just the beautiful thing he had done for her, it was him.

And she didn't try to fool herself, either, when Castle's rich voice caressed her from the clear glass podium, brought her trembling to the edge of herself, dipped her toes in the water. Her heart hurt. But it was a good hurt.

He spoke about honoring a legacy, brief words of introduction, before turning the microphone over to her father.

Kate released Jim's hand, grateful when Castle sat in his place beside her, exchanging one bulwark for another. Castle's thigh pressed against her knee and she let her back touch the seat finally, taking a breath as her father approached the podium.

"Thank you, Richard, for that. And for organizing this night." Jim led the room in polite applause as Castle smiled and gave a short nod, and then the crowd was breathless and still as her father turned back to face them all.

"My wife, Johanna Beckett, was an exceptional woman. We met in law school, back when I still thought I had a shot at passing-" Jim stopped for the chuckles and Kate could imagine the smile on his face, just as it always appeared when her father told that story. "And she quickly redirected me to a profession I was better suited for. She always knew, Johanna did, just the kind of thing that you ought to be doing, and where you ought to be doing it."

Kate heard Castle laughing softly beside her, felt her heart warm towards her father as he shared with all these people the fiery, passionate side of her mother. This intimate view of her mother which had been only theirs for so long, and now her father was displaying it for these people as well, turning it over like a jewel on velvet.

"We used to tease her, Katie and me, that her favorite words were 'I told you so.' And it wasn't because she *thought* she knew better than you; it's because she actually did know better."

The room gave over their smiles again, a laughter that sighed across the room at the special cut of the gem her mother was.

"Johanna had a clear sense of right and wrong; it mattered to her, that right be upheld and wrongs be punished. It wasn't black and white; it was just that living in the gray world never appealed to her. She used to say that the law was the gold standard, but that laws were still just mostly good ideas codified by mostly good men. And sometimes, she said, that left room for people to get hurt, for people to fall through."

Kate tried to take a breath and found that her lungs were trapped; the bands of tension had coiled around her ribs. She slid her hand to the side and found Castle's already waiting. He squeezed, sharp and quick, and the pressure eased in her chest, siphoned off by the force of his hand in hers.

Her father had looked down at his notes; he let the pause draw out in the room.

"She chose to be a defense attorney because of that. Because sometimes, people got hurt. Innocent people. She had a passion for justice, but she had a soft spot for mercy. This was the kind of lawyer she was, and this was what ultimately got her killed."

Kate sucked in a breath and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from jumping up and snatching her father from the podium. She had told him not to bring it up, not to push, not here, because one of these very people could be the sleeping Dragon behind it all.

"My daughter has that same gift for mercy in the face of justice. I've seen it in her, seen it played out in her relationships and her work. She honors her mother's legacy in more ways than a scholarship, or a charity fundraiser ever could. Even though, of course, we are going to try."

Kate felt Castle's hand squeezing hers as everyone in the room turned their eyes towards her on the dais, humming with soft, pleased laughter.

"We both appreciate your support of Johanna's life, your sorrow over her premature death, and your generous giving tonight as you honor both lives: Johanna's, and my daughter's as well. I am grateful, eternally grateful, that she has survived, against all odds, to stand up here today as Johanna's true and lasting legacy."

Kate stood when her father turned back to the chairs and wrapped her arms around him, even as his hug caused the pain to flare along her spine and drag at her sides. She winced, swiped tears from her cheeks, and was thankful that Lanie had brought over waterproof mascara when she was helping Kate get ready.

"Thank you, Daddy," she murmured into his ear.

"God, I'm so grateful you're still here," he whispered back. Kate could feel the cracks in him as she held him close. She wondered if he could feel hers as well.

They stumbled back to their chairs, hands clutched tightly together, even as Rick made his way to the podium as the master of ceremonies. She caught his eye and nodded, and he made a quick introduction, letting her claim her spot before them.

Under the lights at the center of the stage, alone now, again alone, Kate realized she was rubbing her thumb over the index card that contained her notes. She had a smear of black ink along her skin; the words were smudged.

She didn't want to say that anyway, not anymore.

Kate bowed her head before the lights and studied the long length of her fingers atop the podium, felt the slight sway of her body as her muscles struggled to keep her upright. She tensed against a spasm near her shoulder blade and lifted her head.

"I had a speech. But it's not good enough now." She gave a smile because she ought to, and the people before her murmured with appreciation, smiled back at her. "I was going to tell you about how dedicated and passionate a lawyer my mother was, how she worked for people who didn't have a voice, how she took on cases because she wanted someone in this city to care, even if it meant it was just her doing the caring."

Kate used her thumbnail to dig a line into the crease of her finger, until that pain masked the pain that had washed up over her spin like broken glass on the beach.

"I know all the stories. I could tell you the best ones. But instead. . .instead I want to tell you about something else."

She took a moment to glance over her shoulder, saw the two of them sitting side by side, the men who wanted, needed only to love her. And how difficult she made that for them.

Kate turned back to face the crowd, strengthened by their need.


	5. Chapter 5

Just know it was you all along who had a hold of my heart.

But the demon and me were the best of friends from the start.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>"As my father told you, my mother cared about justice, about those who got hurt, who fell through the cracks. But she was one who got hurt. She fell through. The police never solved her murder; they didn't even try to solve it. They shelved it; they ignored the hard questions and buried their heads in the sand."<p>

When she lifted her gaze to meet the curious eyes around the room, she could tell that she'd struck a nerve, that this wasn't what they wanted to hear.

"The truth was too messy, too complicated. The truth was. . .the detectives themselves were so dirty that they didn't want anyone asking those questions. Not my father, not the other cops, not this city. They put a stop to it. And my mother's case sat in a box in the archives gathering dust."

She wouldn't choke up. Not today, not here. She wouldn't let herself.

"Until recently. When we reopened the case, they wanted to put a stop to me too. They need it to stay buried. And those same corrupt people. . .they're going to bury the rest of us with it."

Her hands were trembling; she laid them flat against the podium and tried not to think about what she was doing, what she was saying. Whatever notes she had were long gone now.

"As you know, I'm just a homicide detective who caught the attention of an author. When he started riding along with my team, I didn't think it could work. It seemed. . .unorthodox. But Richard Castle was exactly what we needed, exactly what *I* needed. We've managed to solve murders and arrest the guilty; we've been a team. He's my partner."

She refused to turn and look at him, refused to meet his eyes. She had to do this now, before the pain made it impossible for her to remain standing.

"More than that, Castle has been instrumental in finding answers to those haunting questions about by mother's murder. When everyone else tried to protect me from the truth, tried to bury the truth, he was the one who opened it all up to the light of day."

After the words left her mouth, Kate realized with slow horror that she might have just marked him for death as well.

If he wasn't already.

But she had to do this; she had to keep going.

"The answers we've found are messy; the answers are damning. A year ago, in the middle of real progress on this case, my Captain was shot and killed by an assassin's squad who was gunning for me. And then at his funeral, they came for me again. They took their shot. Since then, I've been fighting to survive."

She took a shallow breath and squeezed her hand tight around the side of the podium, letting it hold her up for a moment, letting her stomach muscles rest.

"I've been fighting. But it might be easier to just let it go. It might have been easier for my mother to let it go as well. She might still be alive today. . .if she didn't believe so passionately in right and wrong, in truth and justice. She died and I almost. . .I almost followed her."

She heard the choked sound behind her and knew it was her father. Her father's sorrow and his pre-emptive grief for her only made this harder.

But she had learned from her Captain that keeping secrets wouldn't save anyone. Burying the truth only led to more lies, more deaths. Bringing this to the public's attention, exposing the dark and secret conspiracy to the light of journalists and bloggers and the city's elite just might be the only option left to them.

And it might, just might, be their only protection as well.

"I almost followed her, but I fought. I took a stand, and I'm still here. The truth can be known; they can't keep us down forever. I know it's risky; I know it's easier to give up-"

Kate squeezed the podium again; she could feel herself sway in the lights. She hoped she didn't look as sick and washed out as she felt.

"But if there's one way to honor my mother's legacy, then it's by answering those terrible questions, by bringing this conspiracy of killers to justice. Once and for all."

She shivered in a sudden draft of cold air that licked her bare arms and swirled around her shoulders.

"I can't give up. I won't give up. And tonight, your donations to the scholarship fund ensure a future generation of lawyers won't give up either."

Kate stepped back and the applause was instantaneous and overwhelming. She didn't think she could move. She struggled to stand in the tide of their approval, swaying on her feet, before she felt a hand at her elbow.

Kate turned and saw Castle standing beside her, silent, grim, but not disapproving, not disappointed. She should've known he'd stand beside her, no matter what.

She shivered again and his grip tightened. She turned her head and saw his concern though; the worry for her was in his eyes.

"I won't give up," she said to him. "I can't."

Regret flashed in his eyes. And guilt.

"Whatever you want, Kate; I'm here. I'm here." He turned to look at the crowd before them, and Kate could see anguish in his face. For what, she couldn't even guess.

Castle turned back to her, guided her to her seat. He met her eyes as he bent over her; he looked afraid.

"I need to tell you something. Later."

The crowd was on its feet in their applause.

And then Castle went to the podium, leaving Kate stunned.


	6. Chapter 6

Everything came tumbling down on me.

In the back of the woods, in the dark of the night,

the paleness of the old moonlight-

everything just felt so incomplete.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>Kate thought she knew what he wanted to say. She thought it would be about the haze of memories that wouldn't come back to her, the dreams that brought her tantalizing glimpses of her last moments, of the time before she was shot. She thought he might finally crack open those secrets, spread them out for her, and call her on them.<p>

She was ready for it. She wanted it.

Castle's broad shoulders were before her as he waited for the applause to die down. She leaned against her father's side, weak with relief and pain meds and yes, the ever-present stiffness in her stomach and back. Jim patted her knee.

"I got you, Katie."

She smiled at him, grateful for the way he supported her, had supported her, this whole time. Despite her speech, despite her rally cry to the crowd, her father was going to let her lean on him.

"Thank you, Dad," she whispered back, kissing his cheek.

She had stopped blaming her father long ago, stopped blaming him for the alcohol abuse, the strange calls from bartenders too early in the morning, the erratic behavior, the soul-swallowing depression, the hangovers, the drunken accusations.

She had stopped blaming him, but this was the first time she had thanked him in a long, long time.

"Thank you," she said again, and let her head rest against his shoulder, no longer caring if the guests before them saw her.

Then Richard Castle began his speech.

"Thank you, one and all. . .thank you for being here. We all know the tragedy that has surrounded the Beckett family; we know all about their loss, and their setbacks. Jim Beckett has told us about the past, how his amazing wife looked out for the underdogs and stood up for the weak. And then her daughter, the extraordinary Detective Beckett, told us about the present, about what we're doing now to preserve her mother's memory and to find those responsible. The past and the present."

Castle half-turned back to them, his dazzling smile only sightly dimmed by whatever was on his mind. He still seemed troubled, even as his eyes met hers, and Kate wondered again why he looked as if his world would fall apart.

"But what I want to talk about is the future. This city's future. Our future."

Kate's hands trembled when he said it. _Our future._ She wanted to talk about that too.

"Twenty years ago, Johanna Beckett started her own firm with the idea that new law graduates needed a place to practice the law they loved under the guide of a mentor. But more than that, these new lawyers would be the ones still longing to make a difference in this city. Johanna wanted to create a group of lawyers that would take on cases no one else would. This would be a group that the system could call on for court-appointed lawyers and be assured that they'd get a good, well-equipped lawyer who would show up for court on time and do his best to defend his indigent client."

Kate lifted her head and shot a look at her father, certain that Jim had to have been the one to tell Castle these things. These things she didn't even know.

Her chest felt tight. "Dad."

Her father shook his head at her as if to say,_ Not now_.

"But here's the tragedy you may not know about. Johanna Beckett was killed before that firm ever got off the ground."

Kate knew her mother had spent a lot of time doing pro bono work with Buchman & Chase; she knew that her mother had been talking about doing her own thing for a long time before her death. But this. . .this was a tragedy unknown to her.

Castle gestured to the crowd. "Here are the grim statistics. Last year, there were 44,000 law school graduates, but 5,000 of those new graduates: young, eager lawyers who passed their bar exams and wanted to make a difference in the world. . .5,000 of those former students couldn't find a job after a year. No job at all, not even something temporary or something they were over-qualified for."

Kate wanted answers now, wanted to know about this firm her mother had tried to start. But her father met her eyes and only shook his head.

"More importantly, the National Law Journal says that 40 percent of law school graduates default on their student loans. Most of those students who actually do get jobs as lawyers, who actually do make enough money to pay their loans? The start date for their job usually ends up being about 6 months after passing the bar. 6 months *after* they've passed the bar. And all that time, no job, no income."

Kate pressed a hand to her stomach as her muscles spasmed. The advil must already be fading; she'd only taken two of the prescription strength. But she'd wanted to be lucid for this, wanted to stand up in front of these people and let them know the truth.

"Law school debt can exceed $200,000. But for next year's graduates? The Bureau of Labor reports that the number of new lawyer positions is going to be way, way less than the number of graduates."

Kate watched Castle pause, both hands on the podium as he studied the audience. She sat up a little, straightening her spine as she tried to battle off the worst of the muscle spasms. Her ribs ached fiercely.

"After a year, about 40 percent of a school's graduating class aren't practicing law. After ten years, in the lower tier schools, the number of graduates not practicing law skyrockets to 90% of their class. And I know what you're all thinking. Who needs more lawyers, right?"

The crowd laughed at this, a laugh of anxiety being released. Kate could see the Page Six crowd still leaning in to gossip with each other; she wondered if they were watching her for signs of weakness.

She didn't feel weak anymore. Even with the ripples of pain spreading through her body with each movement. She had stopped feeling weak long ago.

Castle left the podium to pace for a moment (he couldn't ever stay still, she thought), and then he turned to her, a soft smile on his face, looking right at her.

The Page Six crowd were definitely going to be gossiping now. Castle turned back to the podium.

"After all the time I've spent with the NYPD and her detectives, I've discovered that we *do* need more lawyers, better lawyers, lawyers who care. Lawyers like Johanna Beckett. Lawyers who look at a broken system and can figure out how to fix it. I think we all agree that our city, under the surface, is often pretty broken. I learned that for myself a year ago, when Detective Beckett was shot at another officer's funeral, right in front of my eyes."

Kate heard the break in his voice and clenched the edge of her seat.

"If the guilty still go free. . .if the innocent still get trampled underfoot. . .then this city needs people who know how to use the system, who know how to defend the rights of the poor and indigent. To put it bluntly, we need lawyers who will fight. Lawyers who will take a stand.

"The Johanna Beckett Scholarship Fund will ease the financial burden on those promising, bright-eyed law students who want to make a difference in the world. Those students who would, if not for this Fund, come out of law school with all their good intentions, but who would be shot down by the reality of this city's economics, the fatal bullets of school loans, apartment rent, grocery bills, and family emergencies."

Kate's stomach cramped violently and she hunched over, trying to breathe through it. She felt her father's hand pry hers from the seat's edge, squeezing tightly, and tried to straighten, keeping it off of her face.

"If you've been a victim of crime, if you've been involved in the criminal justice system, you understand what the police are up against, what this city looks like in the seedy underbelly. And you'll want to make a change."

Her father's hand crushed her fingers so hard that Kate sucked in a breath and sat back stiffly in the chair, blinking her eyes clear of the pain bubbling just under the surface of her nervous system. It was barely held in check. But it *was* in check.

"You've had time to bid on the silent auction items, and yes, I'll announce those in a minute. I saw a group of you bidding like mad on the private dinner created by Chef Santorini, so we might need to escort the winner out. . ."

The laughter was genuine this time, and Castle paused for it. Kate imagined the slight smile on his face, could practically see how much he loved this, despite the tinge of sadness in his voice.

"But while the bidding is closed, I did want to offer each and every one of you the opportunity to make a difference to this select group of law students. A group of students who will take on the cases no one else wants to touch, just like Johanna Beckett imagined. A group modeled and inspired by her ideals: to be the voice of the downtrodden, to catch the ones who have fallen through the cracks. . ."

Castle paused to let the words echo over the ballroom floor, bright and pointed.

"You can be a part of that. You can make a difference. You can make a stand, right here, tonight."

And while the crowd at their feet applauded again, enthusiastic and perhaps moved, Richard Castle turned his back to them and came straight for her.

Kate used her father's shoulder to stand, her eyes caught by his. Castle wrapped his arms around her waist, gently, careful not to press, and brushed his lips against her ear.

"I hope that's enough," he said. "I hope it helps."

And she had the sense that Castle wasn't talking about the scholarship at all, that instead, he was talking about them.


	7. Chapter 7

With a fire in my bones

and the sweet taste of kerosene. . .

But all the while, I was dreaming of revelry.

-Revelry, Kings of Leon

* * *

><p>She lured him away.<p>

Kate, feeling the razor's edge she walked between manageable ache and throbbing anguish, made Castle guide her out the side entrance where her two boys stood ready. She shook her head when Emile made to follow, and Castle instead was the one watching her back as they disappeared down the hall.

The Trump-Soho ballroom was still so new that neither of them could find an exit to the front and instead stayed, she a little breathless, in the maze of hallways connecting the conference rooms.

Kate needed, very badly, to lay down. But she needed, even worse, to make him spill everything. Every secret thing he'd kept locked away from her, all those moments they'd apparently had that she couldn't remember. All the things they'd said in the heat of unguarded moments, in the grip of grief, but which she now no longer retained.

It wasn't fair for her to always be in a struggle against a self she didn't know, and couldn't claim, fighting a battle with him that only he remembered.

She leaned back against the wall, the lights here dim and the hallway unused. An emergency exit sign in the distant end glowed red at the corner of her vision. Castle came closer.

"What did you want to tell me?" she asked, putting a hand to her abdomen as if she could keep herself together with her fingers or the shape of a palm. She wanted another couple of advil but didn't dare interrupt this.

Castle stepped in all the way, fully against her now, taking on her weight instead of letting the wall be her structured support. Kate leaned forward into her favorite therapy position: curled against him, his hands under her elbows holding her up. This time his fingers brushed her sides, lovely sparks of pleasure to counteract the pain.

"What did you need to tell me?" she asked again. She wanted, so badly, to start this. She was tired of limitations, of things carefully avoided; she was tired of endings.

He breathed softly against that spot behind her ear, brushing her hair out of the way. She'd cut it as soon after surgery as she could, but it had grown again this year; her hair skimmed her shoulders and curled, dark as night.

"No more secrets. You were right," he whispered against her skin.

Kate slid her arms down along his chest and wrapped them around his waist, reveling in the warmth of him, the solid line of his body against hers. She knew the things he wouldn't say, but she wanted them, wanted the words. She wanted it to have a starting point she could remember, not some haze of agony and blood, not dreams of a too-bright, blue sky and the scratching blades of grass under her cheek as darkness drilled holes in her vision.

She wanted this, not the agony. She wanted him.

"What secrets?" she whispered back, dipping her head to touch her lips to his adam's apple, breathing him in.

He jerked in a breath and let it out slowly, as if seeking control. "I have to tell you."

"So tell me." And she touched the tip of her tongue to his skin, tasted him.

Castle shivered, his hands involuntarily crushing her against his chest, sending jolts of fierce and terrible pain up her spine and down into her legs. She gasped and leaned her forehead against his collarbone, surprised and exhilarated at how she'd made him come undone. So quickly.

He murmured apologies as he cradled her against his body, his fingers featherlight again.

"No more," she moaned, tossing her head against his concern, his lovely, annoying, obtuse concern. "Tell me. Just tell me."

_Say it._

Castle pressed reverent lips to her temple, worshipped at the altar of her body with his hands, smooth and soft, as light as incense. His touch was supplicant.

When she pulled her head back to see him; she wanted to see his eyes when he said it; when she pulled back, his face was repentant rather than ecstatic. His eyes held sorrow, not eternity.

"You should sit down," he said. And the dejavu that swept over her like a cloud wasn't from dreams half-remembered, but from seeing that face before, seeing that devastated regret like a mask on his face. "Beckett. You should sit down."

No. No. Not this. She shook her head at him, in negation of all he was about to do, in negation of Beckett alone.

"The Captain. . .sent me something. Before he went to his death. He mailed me a file. A collection of evidence."

"What?" Instead of fulfilling her memory-dreams, he had punctured the haze with needles sharper than pain.

"It's enough to know, for sure, who is behind everything. All of it. The conspiracy is laid out in perfect detail. I'm sorry. Kate. I'm sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?" But her words caught in her throat, got hung up in the breath that couldn't escape the grip of her spasming lungs. She wheezed and leaned her head back against the wall, but it made the tremors worse.

Oh God. This was what happened. This was the punishment for intimacy; she could not even run away from him.

"I should've given it to you right away. I shouldn't have kept it buried. I was wrong. Kate-"

She was trembling, and she was not even given the choice to be embarrassed by it, because she had stopped being ashamed of this need so long, long ago.

She needed him. It wasn't even weakness; it was formidable strength and it was the steel that kept her backbone straight.

But even as she acknowledged it, he was letting go; he was settling her against the wall as if he couldn't touch her. As if he expected her to need the wall more than him.

She shook her head and fought the urge to be sick. "Castle."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered.

"Why?" It was all she could choke out from the panicked palpitations of her lungs which wouldn't fight against the muscles quivering in her abdomen. Her whole body in revolt against her.

Why was he removing himself? Why now? After a year of forcing himself on her, ever closer, ever more intimate, until his very touch was a lifeline, a release from the prison of her pain. . .and then he dumped this on her and wanted to leave her to the stiff and cold expanse of the wall? The wall?

"Why?" she gasped and closed her eyes against the retreat of his body, her palms flat on the wall behind her. It took everything in her not to break apart.

"Why?" he croaked, as if he'd run for miles. "Why'd I hide it? Why'd I keep it from you? Because I _love_ you."

The world ceased. The jagged racket of her breath stilled.

She opened her eyes on a breaking, wide smile and tried to move towards him, to bring him back where he belonged.

"You do," she breathed and let her hands reach for his wretched and wrecked countenance. "You do."

She curled her hands around the lapels of his tux and tugged him in, hands tightly clenched to keep herself upright, waiting for the blessed touch of his fingertips at her elbows, her support.

"Kate?"

"I don't care, don't care," she murmured, the giddiness of relief washing through her as his hands came up, bulwark and strength.

"I thought. . .you'd hate me," he whispered, sounding shellshocked even as his mouth grew brave and brushed along her ear.

"I do. I hate you for it." She shivered and pressed closer, unable to look. "But I love you and I can't help it. You've made me need you, and I don't even care."

Then his hands were framing her face and pulling her away from him, rough and bruising, no longer gentle. Gone was the Castle who had spent the last year perched on the side of her bed, feathering touches, not pushing. Instead, she had him back again, childish and enthusiastic and clumsy and passionate.

He crushed his mouth against hers, hot and thorough and uncompromising, doing to her what he wanted as she lifted, lifted against him, every ragged edge of pain drawing up out of her. Until they broke apart, and it spilled out into nothing, like ice following heat.

"Say it again," he commanded, his voice raw and needy.

She had made him need her too, somehow, in all of this. Kate had made him just as powerless.

"I hate you for it," she said, her lips sliding up, unwilling to give it away now that she had it back.

Castle growled and angled his mouth over hers again, pulling it all up out of her, his fingers tight in her hair against her skull, seeking admittance.

When they broke again, it was only so that Castle could lean against her, panting, his pulse writhing under the tips of her fingers at his neck. He was trembling. He was gulping for air and backing her against the wall, unwilling to move off of her. He was liquid, strumming tension. He was as helpless as she was.

"I love you for it," she whispered and traced the lines she'd put in his face this past year, eased them from his skin with the brush of her fingers.

Erased them all.


End file.
